


You Don’t Know Me

by ASadHermitStory



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angry Pining, M/M, POV Armitage Hux, Pre-Canon, Undercover, Unresolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASadHermitStory/pseuds/ASadHermitStory
Summary: “Hey, Red, wanna eat with us?”A half-dozen senior cadets laughed goodnaturedly as they sat down at an adjacent table with their meal trays. Armitage pretended not to hear them and continued chewing so that he wouldn’t have to speak. Eating alone wasn’t an option at the New Republic Leadership Academy, but if he was sufficiently unfriendly to everyone, at least he could have a table in the canteen to himself.Anyway, they didn’t really know him.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	You Don’t Know Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [This_is_My_Sock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_is_My_Sock/gifts).



“Hey, Red, wanna eat with us?”

A half-dozen senior cadets laughed goodnaturedly as they sat down at an adjacent table with their meal trays. Armitage pretended not to hear them and continued chewing so that he wouldn’t have to speak. Eating alone wasn’t an option at the New Republic Leadership Academy, but if he was sufficiently unfriendly to everyone, at least he could have a table in the canteen to himself.

Anyway, they didn’t really know him.

No, he definitely didn’t want to be here, but it wasn’t like he’d been given much choice. _You will do this_ , he’d been told. _Know your enemy_ , he’d been told. And if he was unlucky enough to fraternize with anyone who managed to recognize him as their enemy, he’d dared to ask, what then? _Then_ , Supreme Leader Snoke had told him, a sneer of contempt twisting his withered visage, _you’d be an abject failure, of no use to the first Order, and you would deserve whatever sorry fate you’d have coming to you_.

And so, he’d packed his bags the next day. The actual infiltration had been child’s play; the First Order had already secured him a place undercover at the Academy.

“Red, you deaf or something? We’ve saved you a spot!”

Armitage said nothing.

“Aww, c’mon, Red, don’t be like this! Don’t you want to be friends?”

Armitage’s lip curled. A sneer of contempt—he’d learned _that_ from the very best. “No, I don’t,” he muttered down to his meal tray. “And my name isn’t ‘Red.’ ”

“May I join you?”

Armitage’s head jerked up. “I _said_ I didn’t want—”

But the man had already sat down at his table. He was too old to be a cadet, and his facial hair was against sartorial regulation. Indeed, given his plain, nondescript civilian clothing, he likely wasn’t a member of the Republic Navy at all.

The man was beneath notice, in other words. Except, for some reason, he wasn’t. Something about him was…compelling. He might even be called handsome. Grrrrr, such stray, foolish thoughts. Armitage returned his gaze to his food. Seven more bites, he estimated, before he was finished, and no matter what he was served he always made a point of cleaning his tray. This was a matter of principle. Any method, no matter how petty, of getting back at these worthless traitors. Yeah, that’s right; make them feed him! Make them waste their precious resources on him! Their enemy!

“I hope you don’t mind the intrusion,” the man seated across from him interrupted, an apologetic note to his voice. He seemed oblivious to the direction of Armitage’s thoughts. “I’m new here. It’s my first time in the canteen.”

Armitage grunted wordlessly around a mouthful of food. Was this man mistaking him for someone who cared? He rolled his eyes. Four more bites. Three, if he pushed it.

The man refused to take the hint. “So what _is_ your name? I gather from your reaction to your fellow cadets that it isn’t actually ‘Red.’ ”

“Armitage,” Armitage answered before he could stop himself. He didn’t know why he’d spoken in the first place. How strange. It was just, this man, he just seemed so…so… Oh, _whatever. So what?_ Armitage glowered at his meal tray and tried to put his unruly feeling aside. One more bite. Yeeeeess.

“A pleasure to meet you, Armitage. My name is Luke Skywalker.”

Armitage almost choked to death on his last bite of supper.

* * *

He was a visiting instructor, as it turned out, and in residence at the New Republic Leadership Academy for a term or two to teach the next generation of future leaders of a democratic galaxy the rudiments of the Force.

No, they weren’t going to become future Jedi. They weren’t even Force-sensitive. But attendance at his lectures—or glorified meditation sessions, rather—was nevertheless mandatory. Not that many of the cadets would’ve been inclined to miss them. This was _Luke Skywalker_ , after all. Hero. Jedi Master. Living legend.

Luke paced slowly up and down the rows of seated students. “Close your eyes. Control your breathing,” he said softly, soothingly. “Feel the Force in you, in everyone and everything around you. Feel it move through you.”

Armitage ground his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and pretended not to be impressed. Yet, when that warm hand came to a rest on his shoulder, he ached. He could feel his entire _being_ tremble.

“Very good, Armitage,” Luke murmured before moving on.

The situation infuriated him. Luke had only become more attractive over the subsequent tendays, not less. Armitage had never wanted, no, _needed_ , anything as much as Luke, and he couldn’t do _anything_ about it. Not a single damned thing. He couldn’t kill Luke; he’d only die trying and forfeit the great destiny he was certain was in store for him in the future. And he couldn’t kiss Luke; everyone knew Jedi were celibate, and Luke was as untouchable as this pitiful Academy planet’s most distant star.

“Is there something you wish to discuss with me?”

Armitage’s eyes flew open. He stared, openmouthed, and lurched to his feet. The rows of seats were empty. The lecture—or meditation session—had concluded, and he’d been so consumed by his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed. He and Luke were the only ones left in the lecture hall.

“You can tell me,” Luke continued, soft and soothing as always. “I don’t mean to pry; I would never pry. But I know you’ve been troubled. Lonely. And I know what it feels like, Armitage, to feel adrift, like no one understands you, like no one _knows_ how you—” 

“You don’t know me,” Armitage snapped. _And you don’t know what it feels like to be me_ , he didn’t say. Luke was a legend, whereas Armitage was—grrrrr! He was the illegitimate son who had only his ambition to comfort him. He turned smartly towards the door. He was leaving, he told himself. And no, he refused to look Luke in the eye.

“No,” Luke said. He sounded resigned, almost sad, but he didn’t try to stop him. “I don’t.”

For the rest of the term, he and Luke kept their distance, and Armitage congratulated himself on his deception. Those New Republic imbeciles never suspected the intruder in their midst. And as for Luke? He tried to ignore that constant ache inside of him and told himself it wasn’t meant. It never occurred to him, at least not to his conscious self, that perhaps they’d both been lying to each other.


End file.
